Selective Service Law the Most Complete
Recognition of the Citizenship of the Negro, North and South---All the
Duties and Responsibilities of Patriots Imposed Upon the Negro by the Draft
Act---Tribute by the Provost Marshal General to the Colored Soldier---Assignment
of Negro--- Draftees to Cantonments.

On May 18, 1917, Congress enacted what came to be known as the Selective
Service law. As stated in the First Report of the Provost Marshal General,
"It was unequivocal in its terms. It boldly recited the military obligations
of citizenship. It vested the President with the plenary power of prescribing
regulations which should strike a balance between industrial and economical
need on the one hand and the military need on the other. It provided that
men could be summoned for service in the place in which it would best suit
the common good to call them. It was a measure of undoubted significance
and power and flung a fair challenge at the feet of those doubters who did
not believe that the country would respond to a draft upon the man-power
of the republic."

It is of moment to state that on June 5, Registration Day, a number of
representative colored citizens served as Selective Service registrars to
the entire satisfaction of the Provost Marshal General. There was complaint,
however, that so small a number of colored men were permitted to serve as
Selective Service registrars, considering the large number of colored men
who were called upon to register under the draft.

Under the first selective draft 9,586,508 men between the ages of 21
and 31 were registered; of this number 8,848,882 were whites and 737,626
were colored. Thus it appears that the total registration of citizens of
African descent was nearly eight per cent of the entire (racially composite)
registration. Of the number of white and colored draftees who were certified
for service, official figures show that, in the first draft, 75,697
colored men, or 36.23 per cent of the total number were called to the colors
and served as soldiers; while 711,213, or 24.75 per cent of the total number
of white men certified were called to the colors and served as soldiers.
On this particular point I quote directly from Provost Marshal General Crowder's
First Report:

"Thus it appears that out of every 100 colored citizens called
36 were certified for service and 64 were rejected, exempted or discharged;
whereas out of every 100 whites called 25 were certified for service and
75 were rejected, exempted, or discharged."

Further drafts during the course of the war led to increasingly large
numbers of whites being called to the colors, and of course increasingly
large numbers of colored selectmen as well. Nineteen months brought the
total enrollment for service up to twenty-four million (24,000,000), including
those who were enrolled under subsequent calls, which were put into operation
as the result of Congressional legislation, which afterwards enrolled even
those men who reached the age of 45 years.

Under the law, as has been stated, no difference was made as between
white and colored citizens. The citizenship of the Negro as provided in
the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. was fully recognized; color
and race were not material, and the regulations for the purpose of classification
did not exempt the Negro. A comparison of white and colored registration
at the end of the war discloses the following facts: That between June 5,
1917, and September 12, 1918, there were registered 21,489,470 whites and
2,290,527 Negroes, the proportion of colored registrants to the whole being
9.63 per cent. The figures above, however, do not include some 300,000 additional
registrants during September and October.

The Mobilization Division of the Provost Marshal General's Office furnished
the following table (December 16, 1918), showing the total number of white
and colored men called under the Selective Service Draft Regulations during
the entire war as shown by States:

State

White

Colored

Alabama

36,172

25,674

Arizona

8,308

77

Arkansas

33,217

17,544

California

71,026

919

Colorado

24,178

371

Connecticut

33,802

941

Delaware

3,879

1,365

District of Columbia

6,576

4,000

Florida

12,769

12,904

Georgia

34,748

34,303

Idaho

13,222

95

Illinois

178,036

6,754

Indiana

70,701

4,579

Iowa

70,899

929

Kansas

43,761

2,127

Kentucky

48,977

11,320

Louisiana

29,230

28,711

Maine

16,415

50

Maryland

26,211

9,212

Massachusetts

82,765

1,200

Michigan

99,027

2,395

Minnesota

76,406

511

Mississippi

21,182

24,066

Missouri

67,920

9,219

Montana

27,965

198

Nebraska

31,520

642

Nevada

3,227

26

New Hampshire

9,174

27

New Jersey

69,974

4,863

New Mexico

9,082

51

New York

260,759

6,193

North Carolina

40,740

20,082

North Dakota

19,087

87

Ohio

139,695

7,861

Oklahoma

61,287

5,694

Oregon

18,182

68

Pennsylvania

197,336

15,392

Rhode Island

11,785

291

South Carolina

19,909

25,798

South Dakota

22,132

62

Tennessee

44,405

17,774

Texas

91,583

31,506

Utah

77

11,631

Vermont

7,294

22

Virginia

37,295

23,541

Washington

30,912

173

West Virginia

41,362

5,492

Wisconsin

75,261

224

Wyoming

8,095

95

Alaska

1,957

5

Hawaii

5,523

Porto Rico

15,787

Totals

2,442,586

367,710

Of the colored men who were classified, 51.65 per cent were put in Class
I, while of the whites between the same dates who were registered 32.53
per cent were put in Class I.

The Provost Marshal General at some length offers an explanation of the
high figures for colored registrants in Class I, but the essential fact
stands that under the Selective Service Regulations 51.65 per cent of the
colored registration was placed in Class I, while only 32.53 per cent of
the whites were so classified. The Provost Marshal General in his Second
Annual Report to the Secretary of War discusses "The Negro in Relation
to the Draft." Officially he states:

"The part that has been played by the Negro in the great world
drama upon which the curtain is now about to f all is but another proof
of the complete unity of the various elements that go to make up this great
Nation. Passing through the sad and rigorous experience of slavery; ushered
into a sphere of civil and political activity where he was to match his
endeavors with those of his former masters still embittered by defeat,
gradually working his way toward the achievement of success that would
enable both him and the world to justify his new life of freedom; surrounded
for over half a century of his new life by the spectre of that slavedom
through which he had for centuries past laboriously toiled; met continuously
by the prejudice born of tradition; still the slave, to a large extent,
of superstition fed by ignorance---in the light of this history, some doubt
was felt and expressed, by the best friends of the Negro, when the call
came for a draft upon the man-power of the Nation, whether he would possess
sufficient stamina to measure up to the full duty of citizenship, and would
give to the Stars and Stripes, that had guaranteed for him the same liberty
now sought for all nations and all races, the response that was its due.
And, on the part of many of the leaders of the Negro race, there was apprehension
that the sense of fair play and fair dealing, which is so essentially an
American characteristic, would not, nay could not, in a country of such
diversified views, with sectional feeling still slumbering but not dead,
be meted out to the members of the colored race.

"How groundless such fears, how ill considered such doubts, may
be seen from the statistical record of the draft with relation to the Negro.
His race furnished its quota, and uncomplainingly, yes, cheerfully. History,
indeed, will be unable to record the fullness of his spirit in the war,
for the reason that opportunities for enlistment were not opened to him
to the same extent as to the whites. But enough can be gathered from the
records to show that he was filled with the same feeling of patriotism,
the same martial spirit, that fired his white fellow citizen in the cause
for world freedom.

No Discrimination Shown

"As a general rule, he was fair in his dealings with draftofficials;
and in the majority of cases, having the assistance of his white employers,
he was able to present fairly such claims for deferment or discharge as
he may have had, for the consideration of the various draft boards. In
consequence, there appears to have been no racial discrimination made in
the determination of his claims. Indeed, the proportion of claims granted
to claims filed by members of the Negro race compares favorably with the
proportion of claims granted to members of the white race.

"That the men of the colored race were as ready to serve as their
white neighbors is amply proved by the reports from the local boards. A
Pennsylvania board. remarking upon the eagerness of its colored registrants
to be inducted, illustrated this by the action of one registrant, who,
upon learning that his employer had had him placed upon the Emergency fleet
list, quit his job. Another registrant, who was believed by the board to
be above draft age, insisted that he was not, and, in stating that lie
was not married, explained that he 'wanted only one war at a time.'"

General Crowder requested a statement as to the cooperation shown the
office of the Special Assistant to the Secretary of War by the Provost Marshal
General's office in the matter of selective service administration as it
affected the Negro people, especially in reference to complaints which were
from time to time received from his office. He quotes in his Report the
following extract from a memorandum written to him by the Special Assistant
under date of December 12, 1918:

"'Throughout my tenure here I have keenly appreciated the prompt
and cordial co-operation of the Provost Marshal General's office with that
particular section of the office of the Secretary of War especially referred
to herein. The Provost Marshal General's office has carefully investigated
and has furnished full and complete reports in each and every complaint
or case referred to it for attention, involving discrimination, race prejudice,
erroneous classification of draftees, etc., and has rectified these complaints
whenever it was found, upon investigation, that there was just ground for
the same. Especially in the matter of applying and carrying out the Selective
Service Regulations, the Provost Marshal General's Office has kept a watchful
eye upon certain local exemption boards which seemed disinclined to treat
Negro draftees on the same basis as other Americans subject to the draft
law. It is an actual fact that in a number of instances, where flagrant
violations have occurred in the application of the draft law to Negro men
in certain sections of the country, local exemption boards have been removed
bodily and new boards have been appointed to supplant them. In several
instances these boards so appointed have been ordered by the Provost Marshal
General to reclassify colored men who had been unlawfully conscripted into
the Army or who had been wrongfully classified; as a result of this action
hundreds of colored men have bad their complaints remedied and have been
properly reclassified.'"

The Special Assistant also ventured in the same memorandum which Gen.
Crowder quotes, to say:

"'In a word, I believe that the Negro's participation in the war,
his eagerness to serve, and his great courage and demonstrated valor across
the seas, have given him a new idea of Americanism and likewise have given
to the white people of our country a new idea of his citizenship, his real
character and capabilities, and his 100 per cent Americanism. Incidentally,
the Negro has been helped in many ways, physically and mentally and has
been made into an even more satisfactory asset to the Nation.'"

A Problem for the War Department

Inview of the restiveness which obtained in the South with reference
to sending colored soldiers into the training camps an acute problem was
presented to the War Department. Toward the latter part of August, 1917,
a conference was held to discuss this question. It was attended by a number
of educators who were in Washington for the purpose of being present at
an Educational .Conference which had been called by Hon. P. P. Claxton,
United States Commissioner of Education, an appointment having been made
with the Secretary of War, at which conference the whole question was discussed
at some length. Present were Mr. George Foster Peabody, New York, philanthropist
and unfaltering friend of the Negro; Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard, then editor
and owner of the New York Evening Post; Dr. T. H. Harris, State Superintendent
of Education for Louisiana; Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones of the Phelps-Stokes
Fund Foundation; and such prominent colored men as Dr. Robert R. Moton,
Principal of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute; Dr. John Hope,
President of Morehouse College; Bishop George W. Clinton of the A. M. E.
Z. Church, and a number of others, including the author. This conference
was followed by another which was held by Mr. Peabody, Dr. Moton, and the
author, with Messrs. Walter Lippman and Felix Frankfurter, who were advising
the Secretary of War at that time in matters relating to the colored people.
At this latter conference it was substantially agreed that while the South
might object to having colored men from Northern states sent into the various
camps and cantonments of the South, it could not well refuse an acceptance
of the principle of having such colored selectmen as might be called in
such states trained in the cantonments of the states in which they lived.

Considerable hardship followed, however, as the result of this principle;
as, for instance, while Alabama has a large colored population, colored
soldiers were not sent to Camp Sheridan, Alabama, where a camp was located,
but instead were sent to Iowa, because Camp Sheridan was not a cantonment
but a camp at which the Ohio National Guardsmen were trained,---the colored
battalion from Ohio for a while, along with the whites; but the colored
selectmen from Alabama could not be trained at this camp under the program
agreed upon. Camp Gordon, Atlanta, Ga., however, was called upon to accept
colored registrants from Georgia because it was a cantonment rather than
a camp, and the same thing was true of Camp Jackson, South Carolina, to
which colored selectmen of South Carolina were assigned.

The first call for colored selectmen was under date of September 22,
1917, the men being distributed as follows:

The effect of the above distribution was in many cases to throw, in the
beginning, the colored selectmen of Georgia, for instance, with some 30,000
selectmen from the North and East; the same thing was true at Camp Pike,
Arkansas, to which some 30,000 .Western selectmen were first sent. Under
this program it was proved that colored and white men could be trained together
in Southern camps without friction. Long before the nineteen months of the
war had ended, colored selectmen were being sent into practically every
camp in the South, and it is a matter of congratulation to both races that
no such friction and trouble followed as had been feared beforehand.

The draft revealed the fact that the Negro could stand the high physical
tests of the Selective Service Regulations, a smaller proportion of his
number proportionately being rejected than was true of the rest of the composite
American population. Americans generally were more or less amazed to find
that the Negro not only stood up physically, but that in many important
respects where he was supposed to be "off color" his record stood
the test.